Harmonious Movement Is Healthy

Bodily health and being able to move about freely is on everyone’s mind right now.
Rudolf Laban thought about this, too. He believed that a healthy human being “should be able to do every imaginable movement.”

Laban didn’t stop there, however. He designed harmonious movement patterns to build health, not just of the body but also of the mind and spirit. These patterns foster physical balance and range of motion, while allowing scope for freely exploring subtle moods and emotional expression through whole-bodied actions.… Read More

The Grotesque in Dance

Writings on the grotesque seldom discuss dance.  Yet, during the 1700s, Italian dancers trained in a “grotesque” style were in demand all over Europe.  These grotteschi combined French ballet technique with a vigorous athleticism and pantomimic skills to portray comic and “foreign/non-European” characters.  This historical precedent provides a clue to the creative uses of the grotesque.

The grotesque, above all, represents the Other.  The Other may simply be someone of another nation, race, or creed.  Or, within a given situation, the grotesque may depict “Otherness” by transgressing social norms. … Read More

Body, Mind, and Harmony

As the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki noted, “The mind and the body are not one and not two.”  This is undoubtedly one of the most vexing paradoxes of human life.   But perhaps it would not be so vexing if we simply paid more attention to movement harmony, to those moments when mind and body meld seamlessly in the medium of physical action.

Movement harmony matters because it is so ubiquitous that we take it completely for granted.  Normal voluntary movement is miraculous because most of the time we manage to accomplish what we intend without excessive conscious effort, either physical or mental.… Read More

Grappling with a Girdle

Lately I have been grappling with a girdle – not the underwear kind, the Choreutic kind.  I’ve been trying to create suggestions for how to embody each of the four Girdles that Laban identified.

These spatial sequences are peripheral six-rings that surround a diagonally tilted axis.  The Girdles themselves are tilted circles, part of which lies in front of the mover, and part of which lies behind the mover.

I’m quite fond of two of the Girdles that fall in front of the body and rise behind it. … Read More

International Connections

International-Connections

Since MoveScape Center started running correspondence courses, it has been my pleasure to interact in virtual space with movement analysts on five continents. The LIMS Conference in New York made it possible to meet and learn more about the work of several of my correspondents, and to make new friends as well.

I was able to participate in the workshop of Lorella Rapisarda (Italy), whom I met through her participation in the “Decoding Choreutics course. Lorella’s elegant conference workshop explored “The Missing Pull;” or, more accurately, what to do when one cannot fall automatically into the next thing, but must cope with a static situation.Read More

Laban and I Discuss Trace-Forms

Laban-Trace-Forms

CLM: I’ve read that Leonardo da Vinci was interested in “the second form of the human body” – that is, the lines traced by moving limbs on the space around the body.  He visualized these forms as circles. Were you aware of that?

R. Laban:  Not exactly.  But again, circles have been used in figure drawing to help with capturing the figure in motion.

CLM:  But your circles are “rhythmic.”   What exactly does that mean?

RL:  A circle lends itself to continuous motion.  Read More

More Archival Traces of Bartenieff

More Archival Traces of Bartenieff

Irmgard Bartenieff’s letters to Rudolf Laban, as I mentioned in the previous blog, also reveal how she adapted to American culture and redefined herself as a professional – moving beyond dance into physical therapy, dance therapy, and dance anthropology.

In a letter to Laban dated July 21, 1944, Irmgard wrote:

“I went into my work with the sick abnormal body with this curiosity, and I discovered, while always working with the sick as well as with the average untrained working person, how deeply buried the joy and understanding of movement is in most people – to a degree that we really cannot be astonished about the small audiences dancers get.”Read More

Constant Change…

Constant-Change

As Irmgard Bartenieff used to observe, “Constant change is here to stay.” This is certainly the case in Berlin, where Bartenieff grew up. When I first taught for Eurolab  — Rotterdam (1988) and Berlin (1993-1996) – the Laban Certificate Programs were modeled on the American version. And it was an irony of history that these early programs depended heavily on American faculty to teach the Europeans what the Europeans had taught the Americans! 

Two decades later, under the able direction of Antja Kennedy, the Laban programs in Germany have developed a unique format, delivered by European faculty in both German and English.Read More

Advancing Laban’s Ideas in Virtual Space

Advancing-Labans-Ideas

Moving oneself and observing others move are the best ways to learn about movement, but not the only ways. Recently I’ve been experimenting (successfully!) with correspondence courses.

It may seem counterintuitive that something as “old school” as a correspondence course can advance Laban’s work. But I, and nearly 40 readers on five continents, have been finding that this a great way to approach two of Laban’s most seminal books, Choreutics  (aka The Language of Movement) and Mastery of Movement.  

Choreutics primarily focuses on the space and shape aspects of movement, while Mastery deals more with body and effort.Read More

Flow Changes Everything

When flow takes the place of another motion factor, Laban wrote, “the expression is more intense” and the whole configuration “gains new meaning.” In the Mastery of Movement correspondence course, we tested Laban’s assertion.

Readers were asked to choose one of the transformation drives – either Passion or Vision or Spell. They were to work out the eight effort quality combinations of that drive and then embody each mood.

The Vision Drive combines the motion factors of Space, Time, and Flow (the motion factor of Weight is latent).… Read More